So Joe…

Doing a silent install of IE7 is very easy, but you don’t get many options. If you want options, you’ll need to work with the IE Administrators Kit. Step one is to get the IE7 download from www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/default.mspx. This file can be extracted and the install run silently from the extracted files, but what’s really nice about this download is that it can also be run silently from the original download. Here are some of the switches that are available:

• /help (Display the available switches)
• /passive (Run the installation without any input from the user.)
• /quiet (Identical to /passive, but do not show any user interface.)
• /update-no (Do not look for Internet Explorer updates.)
• /no-default (Do not make Internet Explorer the default browser.)
• /nobackup (Do not backup the files that would later be required to uninstall Internet Explorer.)
• /norestart (Do not restart when installation is complete.)
• /forcerestart (Restart after installation)
• log:<path> (Create log file at <path>)

Of course this is most useful to include in scripts for silently building computer images, lab machines, etc. Just to test it though, I simply opened my ‘Run’ command (go under the ‘Start Menu’ and choose ‘Run’). I then dragged the file I downloaded into the empty run window, and it adds the path to the file. I then add the following after the path ” /passive /norestart”. It might look something like this:

“C:\Documents and Settings\username\Desktop\IE7-WindowsXP-x86-enu.exe” /passive /norestart

Click ‘OK’ and a window opens and shows that IE7 is installing, and when it’s done, the window disappears. If you try to open an Internet Explorer window at this time, you’ll still get your previous version. This is because this install does need a restart to work. Restart your computer, and for better or for worse, you’ll be running IE7…